Performance
Three pre-installed fans and a couple of uncovered fan mounts give the Core 3500 plenty of room to breathe. Cooling our overclocked Core i5-3570K during a demanding Prime95 stress test proved straightforward enough.
GPU cooling performance, however, wasn't quite so good. The under-load reading is well within limits, mind, especially for a high-end CrossFire setup. Users wanting to lower graphics-card temps another notch or two should note that the non-windowed Core 3500 has an extra fan mount on the side panel, which could of course be used to significantly aid GPU cooling.
Noise levels, meanwhile, are a bit of a mixed bag. The Core 3500 runs relatively quiet when idling with the fan controller set to low speed but noise levels do rise noticeably when gaming. Cranking the fans up to high-speed incidentally raises idle noise levels to a distracting 41.2dB. Bizarrely, the fan controller in our review sample appears to have been installed upside down, as switching to low actually increases fan speed, and vice versa. We're hoping that gaffe doesn't appear in Fractal's final retail product.
